


Lady of the Lake

by Muckefuck



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: F/M, Magic, mermaid au, mermaid sheba
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 15:51:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4065703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muckefuck/pseuds/Muckefuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solomon is saved by a mermaid as a boy and forms a strange and deep fascination with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady of the Lake

He wouldn’t forget that face if he lived for a day or a thousand years. He wouldn’t forget those arms that wrapped around his body and pulled him towards the light. It was as though he had been held by an angel, but carried back towards the surface. He wasn’t able to breathe enough to speak. He hadn’t been able to think enough to form words.

All he had been able to do was see and see he did. He saw those two breasts pressing together as she was moving towards the light. That dark hair that seemed to have the deepest rose hue where the light managed to peek through.

There was nothing more he could do than be pulled along. A soft pair of lips, softer than silk or velvet, pressed against his lips. They breathed life back into him. The lightheadedness drifted away as he was carried to the surface of the water. The waves pushed and shoved at them, but the woman’s arms held him tight. She pulled him along towards the coast, all the way from the bridge where he had been pushed to the little dock nearby. Around the dock they went, to the shoreline.

And there, he felt his back hit sand. Solomon rolled away from his savior, his water angel. He coughed and hacked for several minutes, trying to gather himself together once more. A hand rubbed his back. Such a soft hand it was.

Solomon looked over again only to find the hand leaving him. The angel- _his_ angel- dove back under the waves. She moved away, her head of pink hair drifting back under the waves.

“WAIT!” Solomon called, coughing as he tried to yell for her.

The woman was gone though, not a trace of her behind…

As he thought that though, his eyes landed on a bit of red cloth. Whoever this woman was, she had left behind her shawl. The lacey fabric was pulled into his arms, being held close as he stood up and stared at the water.

He named her Sheba after the great lake Sheba. Solomon didn’t return to his father’s side after the death attempt. He hid away from the world, building himself a cabin and taking small jobs here and there to get by. Sheba’s shawl was kept by his bedside, something that was never to be moved or touched.

A job was taken up at the local newspaper, writing small at first and then moving to bigger and better jobs. His attention to detail and his imagery was what captured the hearts of his readers. He spoke of fantastic worlds. He dreamed of nights in the sultry lands of the furthest ends of the world. He dwelled on the meaning of man and its hunger for more and more. Capitalism was the death of man, communism its estranged brother.

Despite the success, Solomon refused to move from his home. He built his home by the lake and returned to the water’s edge every evening. He lit a lantern and read aloud, listening to the waves move silently against the shoreline as he spoke. One night, any time, he would see the woman again. She would come back to him and he would return her shawl to her.

It was almost a fantastical dream, far beyond reality. It had to be real though. He took the shawl with him to remind him that she was there. The woman was there and she was waiting.

Did she even like his stories, he wondered sometimes. Did she listen to him read? Had his youthful brush with death bring him to an elder’s dementia?

“Sheba,” Solomon called, settling on the dock this evening. “I’ve brought my last story for you. My editor Arba has insisted I go to the city. I don’t think I can persuade her to leave me be anymore. She thinks to find me a wife.”

His eyes roamed over the lake quietly, his sigh escaping a bit louder than intended.

“There was a man,” Solomon began, placing Sheba’s shawl around his neck for safe keeping from the gentle breeze. “A man of science and logic. A man who believed in what was real and before his eyes. Never had he dabbled in myth or fable. He lived with a philosopher, an alchemist who dreamed of grand and, ultimately, impossible realities. The logical man sighed at the other’s words, believing that the other man, whom naturally was his father, was nothing more than a fool. There could be no lead turned into gold. No departed soul could be brought back with rocks or minerals. No god could see to the wants and needs of mankind. The world was full of animals, of beasts both nature made and forged in iron mills. The logical man believed this so greatly that his father had no choice but to find a manner to which to make the other believe in the impossible. He summoned demons into the house, but the logical man fixed the plumbing and insolated the windows from the demon’s cries. The father killed his wife, but the son merely buried his mother and told the policemen in vain. The father tried again and again, but the son never believed in anything more than numbers and facts. The son’s face was forever bound to the reality and harshness of this world. His soul was steeled against the fickle emotions that ran rampant within his father. Where his father felt spirituality and myth, his son felt longing and sought friendship. Where the father felt aspiration, the son only felt humbleness…”

The world around him was peaceful. It was so quiet as Solomon spoke amongst the voices of the cicadas and crickets. There were no signs of human life anywhere.

“It wasn’t as though,” Solomon continued, “-It wasn’t as though the son did not want to believe. He just had no reason to. His soul dreamed that he could see his mother once more, but her body had grown cold on the table and her blood had dripped onto the stone floors. His rationale had said that there could be no demons or mythical creatures because there was no god to oversee them. He believed in nothing more than reason until finally his father had set to kill him. The man took his son to the bridge near their home, not too close, but close enough that it would not take more than a few hours to return to safety. The father pushed his son from the bridge as he lied about the son’s mother and the son fell like a rock to the water below. The son accepted it, having no reason to live. He shut his eyes in anticipation, expecting a grave silence. The water surrounded him, darkness growing more and more prominent around him…”

A pause was given, Solomon closing his eyes as he waited for some sign. That grave silence was his response, his sign to leave this place and finally go forth back into the world. His hand went to grab the lantern as he stood up.

“…Goodbye, my Sheba.” Solomon told the waters, turning away.

He moved down the dock, biting his lip as he found himself thinking about how irrational his dream of this water angel had been. A woman in the water, saving those who fell in without speaking a word all this time. The locals would have caught her in their many fishing trips. They would have seen her pink hair or something. The pink color was no doubt from the water and the sand in the water hitting his eyes. He had imagined it all as a boy and now, as a man, he needed to realize that it was all his imagination.

It was time to leave.

“Surely someone had to come when he fell in the water. You cannot end a story on such a sad note.”

Solomon nearly dropped the lantern in his hands as he heard that soft voice. His gaze flew to the end of the dock, to where a woman held the edge of the wood planks, swaying in time to the water. Her pink hair was plastered to her person, her warm smile making his feet and heart stop.

“Sh-sheba…”

“I have never had a name before,” Sheba told him gently. “Please finish your story.”

“My story does not have an ending yet,” Solomon replied, moving back to the edge of the dock only for Sheba to drop back into the water. She was as youthful looking as ever, not a wrinkle or crease in her appearance. Her arms moved gently in the water as her small white cloth covered her breasts from his view.

“How can you tell a story that has no ending as your final story? You cannot just leave a story unfinished, but if you don’t finish, you can’t leave.”

“It’s hard to end a story when the story is simply your life. I don’t know how my story ends and who I will meet.”

“I imagine it would be better than most your stories hopefully. It seems that greed is a major problem in them… and loneliness. Surely you will find someone who makes the sun shine brighter and your heart sing.”

“There’s no promise of that. I don’t seem to have any love interest.”

The girl swam a bit closer and frowned. “And what about your father? Will you ever go back to him? Will he come back to try to finish his attempt to kill you?”

“There’s no telling. Without my water angel to protect me elsewhere, I could face certain doom when I leave this place.”

Sheba scowled, her body finally close enough. Solomon jumped off the dock, taking the poor girl by surprise as he fell into the water and surfaced once more. His arms wrapped around the woman as he wiped his bangs back.

“The future is a mystery, much like you.”

“Ah- you shouldn’t… I’m not supposed to speak to humans.”

“We had to speak at some point,” Solomon argued. You saved my life, Sheba. I owe you a great deal of gratitude for that.”

The girl blushed, her face turning away as she nodded. “Y-you’re welcome… I guess…”

Solomon leaned in close, pressing his forehead to hers. “I’m guessing by your referring to me as a human that you are something else entirely?”

She nodded, too shy to speak.

“Can you tell me a story perhaps?”

“I’m… I’m not that good with stories.”

Solomon looked her over a moment before he pulled away, unwrapping the shawl from his neck to wrap it around Sheba once again. It was dread in him at this moment. More than anything else, he feared letting her go only for her to drift away into the waves once more. She could leave him at any moment.

“If you know I’m good at stories, then you have been listening this whole time?”

“Every single night,” Sheba confessed, her blush deepening upon he cheeks. “I like to remain under the docks and listen. You have a soothing voice.”

“I have a very inspirational muse.”

“Um… Perhaps I should have let you go… I’m not supposed to-“

Solomon pressed his lips to hers, stopping her doubts for the moment. The woman leaned against him, scales brushing against his legs as she did.

“A mermaid,” Solomon murmured against her lips. He pulled away from her lips and shook his head. That put a damper in simply pulling her away. He could fill his bath for her, but for how long would she be happy in his little bathtub at home? She had the whole lake here to roam free. She could feel the night air and hear the wildlife in the world around them. His bathroom could not compare.

“A mermaid, yes.” Sheba pulled away a bit more, still in his hold, but no longer close enough for him to kiss. “…That’s why I left you and haven’t shown myself to you since, even when you asked to see me. I’m supposed to remain here. I was cursed to remain in this water for my life. I’m not allowed to leave. That’s why I cannot grow attached to anyone or anything other than the fish that swim with me here. I have to love my freedom and my freedom alone…”

“You were cursed?”

“There was a woman that my mother and father wronged who cursed me to swim like the slippery fish that my parents acted like.”

Solomon nodded, although he had many questions. Like what she ate. How she slept… then there was breathing and bodily functions otherwise.

“So there’s no saving you from this life?”

“I don’t think so…”

Solomon thought to himself for a moment before he wrapped his arms around her more and pulled her against him. “I refuse to believe that.”

“There’s no choice.”

“I’ve read enough stories to know that the solution to these kinds of things is usually romantic. Fate usually dictates over curses.” The “f” word felt thick as Solomon found himself speaking it, his eyes remaining on the woman as he spoke of such things.

“R-Romantic?”

Solomon kept his arms around the woman’s waist, drifting them both towards the shoreline. “Mhmm,” he murmured, his blue gaze remaining firmly on the woman. “Usually in these kinds of stories, a very passionate love of some kind usually makes fate respond kindly and takes away curses. It’s very commonplace in love stories. It’s almost all too common.”

“I’m a-afraid it cannot be like that.”

“You’re sure? So there’s no way you could fall for me?”

Sheba looked horrified as he said that. “N-NO! –I mean! It’s not that I wouldn’t like to fall for you- or- I mean! I already fell for you long ago and I’m still partially a fish! Nothing’s changed except that the days have gotten longer!”

She was stumbling over her words, trying desperately to say what she was thinking without embarrassing herself. Solomon almost laughed, the amused smile graced his features as he watched her fumble over herself to speak her mind.

He was walking her to the land without her even realizing, one arm going under her tail as they headed to the shoreline.

“The days have gotten longer for you?”

The girl was absolutely burning as he asked that. Elaborating that observation was far beyond the girl’s wishes as she leaned against him. Her mind was so far in turmoil that she missed the open air hitting her at first. Solomon held her against himself and began to carry her towards his home.  When she did notice, Sheba flailed in his arms.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I CAN’T-“

Solomon pressed his lips to hers, holding her close. “I’m taking you home with me.”

“I need-“

“I have a bathtub for the time being. I’ll think of a way to fix your curse.”

Sheba clung to him, unable to walk herself back to the water at this point. Her eyes closed as she shook in his arms. Her voice was so small as she spoke once more.

“This will never work. I haven’t been out of the water since before I can remember…”

He had forgotten his lantern by the docks, Solomon realized as night really showed in the dark woods on the way to his home. Solomon knew the path somewhat well though. A few wrong turns and backtracking had him finally on the right track, but Sheba’s scales were drying. The poor girl held onto him, murmuring his name as they walked.

“When we get the curse of yours reversed, we’ll travel together,” Solomon promised. “We’ll see all the places like in my stories.”

Her scales began to fall off as they walked further into the woods though. Solomon’s eyes drifted to the pink scales on the ground, his thoughts straying to worries now as he moved along the dirt path. If she lost her scales, what did that mean for her? Would this risk infection? Perhaps there was some quality to the water that he was unaware of…

He wouldn’t know for sure until he saw the true damage of the drying out and for that he needed to get home first.

He picked up his pace with that in mind. His house ahead of them was dark, but Solomon spared no moment with lights as he entered his home. He moved straight to the bathroom and laid the woman down in his tub. He began to run the water a moment before he turned on the lights and paused.

She had legs. She was as human as anyone else in the world. This curse or whatever it was, had left her legs intact underneath a strange thin skin. This skin was the thing that had held the scales on her body. While it left him to wonder more about the anatomy of her mermaid status, it made resolving their issue much simpler. The water must have been maintaining the mermaid tale’s skin layer. Solomon pulled Sheba out of the water of the tub and left the tub to sit. His hands pressed against the thin layer of skin and remaining scales, pulling them off her so that only the legs underneath remained. The smooth skin of her legs met his fingers and Solomon had to breathe as he found her squirming in his arms.

The more he pulled off, the more he found himself rather fascinated by the circumstances of the woman’s plight. The bottom of her tail seemed to have rotted away outside of the water.

Had she never tried to leave the water before? It seemed like a natural thing to do… or perhaps it had hurt to try…

He took a wet rag to her legs, wiping them clean of the remaining tail skin and scales. His bathroom was left a mess as he carried the girl to his bed and left her there. Her face pressed against his pillows, her body looking so small and frail against his sheets. She was something otherworldly, even without the tail.

Solomon left the house for a few minutes, wandering back to the docks for his lantern before returning to his home. He cleaned up the bathroom, collecting the scales in the room into a spare jar for later examination. The pink scales had grown hard while they had dried. Of all things, they had hardened and fallen off her. They rattled in the glass jar Solomon left them in. The jar was left on the nightstand by Sheba as Solomon climbed into bed beside her. As he settled in for rest, he watched the water angel of his childhood sleep soundly before him. Her body rolling over to face him.

Her hair was splayed across the pillow she was using, her long lashes hiding away those all-seeing eyes of hers. Her mouth was small, almost in a pout as she slept. She looked so lost to the world, caught up in whatever thoughts she had been thinking beforehand.

Would she love being with him, out of the lake and able to walk amongst the humans of this world? Had he been selfish to steal her away?

He pulled her body closer and tossed the blanket over them both. Sheba’s body snuggled up to his as she murmured his name in her sleep.

Sleeping was impossible in the end. Solomon’s arms remained wrapped around the woman until the morning. He watched life return to the woman as she awakened. Sheba’s pink gaze drifted up to his own before she pulled back, sitting up only to pause.

“I…” She gaped at him as she pulled the covers back and looked at her legs. “I have legs!”

“Your tail fell off. Apparently you needed to keep that wet or you would be just like us humans. Strange how that works.” Solomon leaned against his headboard. “Looks like the true love nonsense is only that- nonsense.”

“This is amazing!” Sheba stood up on her feet only to immediately begin to fall. Solomon’s arms wrapped around her immediately, pulling her back onto the bed.

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself on walking. You’ve been swimming for six years at least. Probably longer. That’s only how long I’ve known of you. You need to progress to walking, you silly woman.”

Sheba’s eyes were absolutely sparkling as she looked up at him though. Her lips pressed against his own before she blushed heavily.

“I couldn’t have done this without you though!”

“You just needed to want to leave. You could have left that lake at any-“

“I had no reason to until I fell in love with you though!” Sheba wrapped her arms around him and leaned against him. “You’re my miracle.”

“I didn’t do anything that extreme.”

“You loved me though, enough to pull me out of the water and bring me here… This is your home, isn’t it?”

Solomon nodded and watched her smile at his small excuse of a home. “It’s perfect. It’s warm and has a loving man in it. Would you mind if I stayed here with you?”

“Considering I dragged you away from your own home permanently, I think you might have to stay here for now.”

The woman laughed at him for that. Of all things, she just laughed and leaned against him. A lovesick fool already, it seemed. Although, Solomon couldn’t argue as he found himself holding her close and watching the morning light shine on the scales in the glass jar.

Perhaps… Perhaps the old fool David had been right about some myths…

Or perhaps it didn’t matter, since his mermaid had been human to begin with.

Whatever the case, this mermaid- his water angel, was now going to remain at his side from now on. Never again would he be lost to any darkness. Neither the depths of the water nor loneliness could touch him anymore. He had his Sheba.


End file.
